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Burmese monks draft law to make marriage between Buddhists and Muslims illegal

Zoe DanielUpdated
Fri 5 Jul 2013, 7:52 PM AEST

Buddhist monks are popularly thought of as universally kind and benevolent, but events in Burma may re-shape that perception. Monks there have just drafted a law that would make illegal marriages between a Buddhists and a Muslim. The discrimination is part of a wider story of ethnic tension that's seen violent clashes between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

Transcript

PETER LLOYD: Buddhist monks are popularly thought of as universally kind and benevolent, but events in Burma may re-shape that perception.

Monks there have just drafted a law that would make illegal marriage between a Buddhist and a Muslim.

The discrimination is part of a wider story of ethnic tension that's seen violent clashes between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

The trouble is testing the ability of Burma's leaders to hold the country together, as it transitions to civilian rule.

Southeast Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel reports.

ZOE DANIEL: Myanmar is about 90 per cent Buddhist, a religion characterised by inclusiveness and tolerance. But lately here, those central elements of Buddhist teachings have been overtaken by another - a desire to protect Buddhism from Islam.

ASHIN WIRATHU (translation): They have the belief that the world should have Islamic faith. So it's not only Buddhism, they attack, invade all other religions in the world.

ZOE DANIEL: Monk Ashin Wirathu has been blamed in part for fanning religious violence that flared first in western Myanmar's Rakhine state last year between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, and has since boiled over elsewhere.

He's been described as "Burma's Bin Laden" due to his extremist anti-Muslim teachings, which he delivers in lectures like this around the countryside.

ASHIN WIRATHU (translation): Shouldn't we use violence and hardship on those who practice against us? Also shouldn't we retaliate against those who are bad to us?

ZOE DANIEL: In Meiktila in central Myanmar, when fighting broke out in March, both Muslims and Buddhists lost their homes and businesses after parts of the city were torched. But the loss of life and property was overwhelmingly Muslim.

Now parts of town are closed off and in ruins, a few flags marking Buddhist homes lost in the vast destruction around a mosque.

Monk U Wi Thadda sheltered Muslims from the rampaging mob during those dark days a few months ago. He's now working with Islamic leaders to try to restore trust between the two communities.

U WI THADDA (translation): I teach all people, whether from Buddhism or Islam, to interact with one another based on trust whenever they come together.

U SAN WIN SHEIN (translation): We lived like family, relatives with Buddhist people, we lived like siblings but since this happened they have fear and worry in their minds. They don't have trust anymore and I can see that they do not have same warm feelings as before.

ZOE DANIEL: Muslims displaced in the fighting are staying out of town in camps which we were unable to access.

About 5,000 people remain in camps, because their houses were burnt down in the violence.

Only Muslims have so far been prosecuted over the violence. One man has been jailed for killing a Buddhist monk with a sword and setting the body on fire.Yet no-one has yet been held to account for burning down a Muslim school, killing 28 children and several teachers.

Myanmar authorities say it's only a matter of time before Buddhist offenders are also held to account, but lawyer Thein Than Oo is concerned that there's little will to do so.

THEIN THAN OO (translation): There is no-one taking action over the murder of the children and many other people. Let's say they're not even actively unofficially investigating the situation.

ZOE DANIEL: The fighting has now flared in four states and in all but one it's been contained to a single town. In some cases local residents claim that strangers have come from outside, hell bent on causing trouble.